Stefanie DeLuca joined Peter Rosenblatt of Johns Hopkins University and Holly Wood of Harvard University to present at a panel hosted by the American Sociological Association as part of its Annual Meeting on Global and Transnational Sociology.
The reproduction of segregation and unequal neighborhood attainment has long been a social problem identified by scholars. Despite demonstrating high levels of residential mobility between intraurban neighborhoods, low-income black families are more likely than any other group to move between disadvantaged neighborhoods. These findings call for research to identify the mechanisms which work to channel families into unequal neighborhoods. Using in-depth interviews with 100 low-income African-American family heads residing in Mobile, AL and Baltimore, MD, we describe how the process of relocation works for the urban poor and how families engage in the process of residential selection throughout their residential biographies. Most families do not choose to move at all, with approximately 70 percent of all most recent moves being catalyzed by forces which induce immediate, often involuntary relocation. We show how this “reactive mobility” works to accelerate and hamper residential selection in ways that may reproduce neighborhood context. Where mobility is catalyzed by choice, we show how these choices are often made under circumstances which prohibit families from investigating their full range of residential options and also compel hasty relocations. These findings expand existing scholarship on the social process of residential mobility.